Friday's News & Ideas - 10/27/2023

US Jews fracture over support for Israeli retaliation
Religion News Service: Pro-Israel groups have denounced left-leaning Jews, accusing them of being antisemitic and not really Jewish.

Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee statue melted down
Religion News Service: “It’s taking that culture of death and repurposing it for the sake of life, telling this very long story of resistance to that white supremacist culture,” said the Rev. Isaac Collins, a Methodist minister who attended the melting.

Mitt Romney, the public face of Mormonism, reckons with his alienation from a radicalized GOP and his role in enabling it
Religion Dispatches: In the 2008 presidential election, Romney had to convince evangelicals that they could cast their allegiance to a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Christian nationalist ideas that made Mike Johnson
Politico: “He seems to be saying his commitment is to minority rule,” historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez said.

Spanish clergy sexually abused more than 200,000 children, inquiry estimates
The Guardian: An ombudsman says the Catholic church’s response to the cases has been “insufficient” and calls for the creation of a reparations fund.

The Spark

The mystery of Florida’s flamingos
After Hurricane Idalia, Floridians reported more sightings of flamingos* than they did in the entire twentieth century, The New Yorker says.

*access is limited for nonsubscribers